


Ice and Fire, and other stories

by AconitumNapellus



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (TV)
Genre: Christmas, Hurt Illya, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Psychological Torture, Shipwreck, Snow
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 13:27:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,218
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12936252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AconitumNapellus/pseuds/AconitumNapellus
Summary: I ended up writing two stories, worried about fulfilling the prompt properly. The first is a little 18 rated, the second not really at all.Story 1: It's almost Christmas, and Illya has rescued Napoleon from psychological torture in a Thrush base. Now they're holed up in a barn in a blizzard...Story 2: Christmas on a life raft in the south seas...Prompts were: - Yin/Yang or Dualities- Cloud Watching- Bad Day Gets Better





	1. Ice and Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tallihensia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tallihensia/gifts).



Screaming, screaming, screaming.

Illya jerked awake. It wasn’t his nightmare. It was someone else’s. Someone –

The sweat was cooling fast on him now. Черт, it was cold out there. Still dark, so dark, but cold. He had got hot huddled together with Napoleon, but –

That brought him right into consciousness. It was Napoleon. Napoleon was screaming, and he wasn’t there, wasn’t beside Illya any more. The wind was still howling and the fire in the rusted stove had died to embers. Illya cursed and stumbled through darkness that was so cold it felt like breaking through ice. He was guided by Napoleon’s voice across the creaking floor, knocking junk aside with his feet. He found him by the door, beating on it and screaming, screaming.

‘Napoleon,’ he said, stopping just a few feet from him, afraid of him lashing out. Even in a panic like this Napoleon would be able to draw on enough of his training to hurt Illya badly. ‘ _Napoleon!_ ’

His voice seemed to give his partner something to cling to. The scrabbling and banging stopped, but Napoleon said in a voice still high-pitched with fear, ‘I’m on fire! I’m on fire! Need water – ’

‘No, Napoleon.’

Illya risked reaching out a hand, and after a moment he found Napoleon’s arm. He could feel the fear all through him, trembling through his rigid muscles.

‘No, Napoleon. Wake up. There’s no fire. Look. If there were fire there’d be light. It’s dark. Okay? It’s dark.’

It was like trying to calm a panicking horse. He could feel Napoleon’s need to run. But he put out his other hand, pressed it on Napoleon’s other arm, stroked him slowly and gently.

‘Napoleon,’ he said softly, so soft that the wailing of the wind outside almost effaced his words. He came close enough to Napoleon to put his mouth right by his ear, so his face was against the side of Napoleon’s head. ‘Listen to me. You’re dreaming. There’s no fire. You’re not burning. It’s dark. It’s minus twenty out there. You can’t go outside. You’ll freeze to death. Listen to your cold weather specialist. Come back to bed. There’s no fire.’

He could hear Napoleon’s breaths. They were slowing a little, heaving in and then blowing out with increasing steadiness.

‘I-Illya?’ he asked at last.

‘Yes, that’s me,’ Illya said, a smile of relief quirking the side of his mouth.

He reached up a hand in the dark and traced his fingers down Napoleon’s cheek, feeling stubble that was rough against his fingertips. Napoleon’s face was dark with a week’s beard. His own was getting that way too.

‘You were dreaming. It’s all right. You need to come back to bed. You got too hot but you’re going to freeze if you stand here by the door. We’re both going to freeze.’

‘Oh,’ Napoleon said.

Illya ran fingers down Napoleon’s arm, lifted his hand to his mouth, flicked his tongue over knuckles and fingertips to check them the best way he could in the dark. Napoleon had drawn blood again in trying to break through the door.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Back to bed. Back to sleep.’

‘On fire...’ Napoleon murmured, as if he were subconsciously still clinging to the dream.

Illya led him back to their nest of coats and ragged cloths and hay on the other side of the room, and coaxed Napoleon to lie down. He pushed some more pieces of broken wood into the stove then lay down himself, spooning behind Napoleon, arm across his shoulder, leg hitched up protectively over his thigh. It had been three nights and the nightmares hadn’t abated yet. There hadn’t been a burn on Napoleon when he got him out of that place, no sign of harm but the little red marks on his temples where they applied the contacts. But somehow they had got into his mind and convinced him that he was burning, on fire, burning day after day but never consumed. It had been terrible to see Napoleon as he was when Illya dragged him from the cell. He had never been more pleased to have used real bullets, never more pleased with his accuracy for one-shot kills.

But he hadn’t killed them all. Thrush were legion. There were always more.

In the darkness, arms around Napoleon, he stroked his fingertips over his gun. He didn’t dare take it apart without seeing, but he pulled out the clip and checked the weight, made sure the safety was on, and settled himself with the gun still in his hand. He had five more clips in his backpack. Napoleon didn’t have his gun and Illya wasn’t sure he’d be able to trust him with it if he did. He had picked up a couple of handguns as he made his way through the fort. Napoleon could use them when he was capable. But not yet. He wasn’t letting him get his hands on a gun yet.

Napoleon’s breathing was still a little too fast, a little too hard.

‘Go back to sleep, Napoleon,’ he said.

Napoleon’s breathing altered a little. Illya thought he wanted to say something but couldn’t. When men were awake they weren’t supposed to admit to fear.

‘I’m here,’ Illya said, but he knew that being there hadn’t stopped the nightmares the last time, or the time before that, or the time before that. ‘You’re not burning. They implanted the thought in you. You can alter your own perceptions. You can erase what they did.’

It was so much easier to tell someone who had been the subject of psychological torture that they could overcome it, than it was to overcome it when you had been the one in the chair.

‘It’s so real,’ Napoleon murmured, and his voice was his, awake, without panic. Somehow that made it worse.

‘I know,’ Illya said, stroking his arm.

‘When I’m asleep, it’s so real,’ Napoleon said.

‘I know,’ Illya said again. ‘Try to go to sleep, Napoleon. We need to walk tomorrow if the weather’s better.’

Napoleon grunted. Spooned against his back, Illya stroked his arm and stroked his face. He murmured softly to him, speaking to him not in English, but in Ukrainian, because he knew in that way that Napoleon wouldn’t be distracted by the words, but just soothed by the sounds. He wasn’t conscious of falling asleep himself.

  


((O))

  


Illya had gone to sleep murmuring nonsense. At least, to Napoleon it sounded like nonsense, because every time he thought he was grasping the Russian something else inserted itself. His accent was different, deeper, richer. Napoleon thought he was speaking Ukrainian, and he listened, caught by the words, because how often did he hear Illya speaking his mother tongue rather than educated Russian, or most often English, or Spanish, German, French? So he lay mesmerised by the sound of Illya’s voice as he used a language that was usually restricted to murmurings of  _I love you_ at the peak of intimacy.

Illya’s voice drifted on, his hands drifted like silk over Napoleon’s skin, trying to stroke him into sleep, but sleep was a terrible place. Outside the blizzard winds howled and shrieked, but despite the biting cold Napoleon heard flames in those winds, flames that would devour everything he loved, flames that would lick away his flesh with agonising slowness but never let him die.

When he was captured he had faced the prospect of torture with cool dismissal. He always did, no matter how he felt inside. He knew there was no point in pleading. There never was. Torturers wanted either answers or gratification, and the victim was almost always more than helpless. So he had sat in that uncomfortable chair, wrists shackled to the arms, ankles to the legs, neck and head braced against the headrest, and he had silently let the torture take its course.

_Oh, electrodes. On the temples, no less. How novel._

He had been cool but apprehensive. He was always apprehensive when they threatened to mess with his brain. The body could take a lot, but the mind was mysterious and too easily damaged.

_Do what you want, but don’t hurt my face..._ He would easily replace the word  _face_ with  _brain._ The idea of brain damage haunted him. He had seen it happen to agents before.

_Do what you want, but don’t hurt my brain. Please, god, don’t hurt my brain..._

Of course they had hurt his brain. Maybe it wouldn’t be permanent. He prayed it wouldn’t be permanent. But he had sat in that chair for hours while they implanted the conviction that he was burning in a furnace of flames, and he had screamed and he had struggled so hard that his wrists and ankles and head and neck were bruised from the restraints. When they had thrown him back in the cell each time the shaking was worse, the hallucinations were worse, the nightmares were worse. When Illya had got him out he had sobbed. He had been a mess, clinging to his partner, to his lover, shaking so hard he was almost incapable of walking, hardly able to see the snow outside for the flames in his mind.

How could the wind be so cold and the falling snow be so cold, but a person still be wrapped in the illusion that they were burning to death? He had clung to Illya and run, stumbling, shaking, his body running but some part of him inside himself trying to run out of his skin, trying to get away from his mind, because it was his mind that had set him on fire. The pain was incredible. The fear was incredible. He had a vague memory of Illya stopping him somewhere, pushing him to sit down. Maybe that was here in this stable. Maybe he had got him in through the door and put up the bar across it and hustled him over to the hay, and Napoleon had thought  _no, the hay’s gonna catch fire, the barn’s gonna catch fire, gotta get out of here, got to get to water –_

And Illya had crouched there holding his fingers pressed on his partner’s pulse, taking the speed of his heartbeat, and tried to calm him down.

_Nothing’s on fire, Napoleon. You’re all right. You’re safe now. It’s all right._

He had heard Illya’s terrible concern, the terrible note of worry behind his words of reassurance. But the fire was in his body, before his eyes, all over his skin, and Illya’s words didn’t make it go away. Only time made it dull, and whenever he thought he was safe it flared up again, engulfing him.

He could feel it coming again… Illya was still pressed against him and around him and he should feel safe, but he could feel the burning, he could see the flames. His entire body was shaking. He closed his eyes and with an enormous force of will he fought against the sensation, fought against the need to scream and run into the snow outside. In front of his closed eyes he could see the flame. He could feel the flame, eating into his flesh, eating down to his bones…

He wrenched his eyes open and stared into the blackness. There was a slight red glow where the stove was smouldering, something just pressing through the crack of the door. The air smelt of wood smoke. Not the scent of burning flesh. Thank god, it was not the smell of burning flesh.

He stared hard into the dark around him, breathed in the cold air, sucked it deep into his lungs. His throat was still raw from screaming. The air smelt of smoke, but there was also the smell of damp, and of mildew, of old cloth and hay. And there was the smell of Illya. He pressed backwards more firmly against the curve of Illya’s body, and his partner mumbled something in his sleep, his arms tightening a little around Napoleon’s chest. Napoleon caught his hand and hugged it closer towards his face. He inhaled the scent of Illya’s skin, pressing the soft heel of his palm against his nose and mouth.

When he finally fell asleep he dreamt that they were both burning.

  


((O))

  


Bitter cold. Illya pressed himself harder against the warm body in front of him, buried his fingers under that person’s arms, huddled his head down further beneath coats and thin blankets and itching hay. He tried to recall the snatches of dream that had been there. Something about running. Something about men. And fire. There was fire, flames.

No. No, that had been Napoleon’s fantasy, hadn’t it? How many times had Napoleon woken up screaming or sobbing or struggling or got right across the room before Illya had realised what was going on? All through the night the temperature outside had been below zero, and Napoleon had been dreaming about burning.

His head ached so much. The night had been long and ragged and even when he had slept he didn’t think he had properly relaxed.

He opened one eye enough to see the thin, grey light of something approaching morning. Only the edges of things were visible.

Napoleon stirred in his arms and made a small, low noise, and Illya kissed the back of his head and shushed him automatically.

‘S’morning?’ Napoleon murmured, his words half lost behind the muffling layers of cloth.

‘Close, I think,’ Illya replied, his mouth against Napoleon’s hair, so that his own breath billowed back warm and moist over his face.

‘Oh,’ Napoleon murmured. Then he said, ‘Guess it’s Christmas Eve.’

Illya tightened his arms a little around Napoleon’s chest, enjoying the feeling of his short hair tickling his face, enjoying the warmth of being so close before he would have to prise himself away. Christmas Eve… It didn’t feel like Christmas Eve yet. He had only started sharing Christmas when he had started sharing his life with Napoleon, but Christmas was important to his partner and so it had become important to him. The days around Christmas were starting to take on that strange gravity that he had always felt for New Year. It was an odd time closed off from the rest of the year, no matter where they were.

‘I suppose it is,’ he said. ‘I’m amazed you managed to keep count of the days.’

‘Keeping count of the days was one of the things that kept me half sane,’ Napoleon replied. ‘From the seventeenth to the twenty-first they had me. On the twenty-first you got me out. And then – ’

And then they had run and run, Illya dropping men behind him with single shots. They had snatched what cold weather gear and equipment they could from the fort. Illya had bundled Napoleon, shaking, into as much protective clothing as possible, and they had run. Feet slipping and sinking into snow, snow over the top of their boots, snow scouring down from the sky like grit, so icy and hard and fine that it made their eyelids bleed. Napoleon babbling about burning when the temperature was so cold that their breath froze in the mufflers across their mouths. They had run and run, and Illya had hated the snow and loved the snow, because it was trying to kill them and because it was covering their tracks. They had only just made this abandoned outbuilding before the weather had really closed in, and the wind had been howling and screaming snow at them ever since.

‘It’d be funny if we spent Christmas in a stable,’ Napoleon said.

‘Surrounded by the manger,’ Illya added drily, fingering the hay. ‘But I hope we’ll be able to get out of here before tomorrow.’

‘What about the weather?’ Napoleon asked, and Illya grunted.

‘Fire must have gone out a good few hours ago,’ he said, because the air was freezing in here now. ‘But that’s good if the blizzard’s stopped. Can’t hear any wind. We don’t want anyone seeing the smoke.’

‘Breakfast?’ Napoleon asked.

Illya laughed, a little huff against the back of Napoleon’s head.

‘I still have some ration bars.’

Napoleon gave a single grunt. ‘I’ll take a French roll. A cup of coffee. Eggs, bacon, orange juice. We’ll stroll down to Delmonico’s for lunch.’

‘I have ration bars,’ Illya said.

He didn’t want to think about proper food. He was more hungry than he cared to express. They had existed on the dreary ration bars for the last three days. He was wondering if they might find any poor edible animal frozen to death outside, or if he could shoot something. But a shot would be heard just as easily as rising smoke would be seen, so it was ration bars or nothing. He didn’t fancy frozen muskrat.

At last he eased himself away from Napoleon’s warmth and went over to the door of this old, abandoned shelter. It had probably been a barn or workshop of sorts. There were stalls for animals, which had provided much needed firewood, thank god. There was a rusting ancient stove in the wide workspace. Just enough to keep them alive. If there had been a house it was long gone, but at least the barn had still had a load of mouldering hay, sacking, and tattered horse blankets.

He lifted the bar that had been keeping the door closed, and opened it, just a crack, pushing against the weight of snow.

Grey. The entire world was grey. The blizzard must have stopped at some point in the night, to be replaced with slow, soft snow. The ground was covered in billows and drifts that undulated into the distance, all shades of grey in the pre-dawn light. The sky was clear, pricked with stars. On the eastern horizon was a line of pink-gold threatening to turn into a fire as the sun rose.

‘It’s clear,’ he said succinctly, going back to the other side of the room. Napoleon was standing up, dusting hay from his hair and shoulders, getting properly into his thick coat and fiddling with the zip.

‘Nice day for an excursion, then.’

Illya eyed him critically.

‘Are you up to walking?’

Napoleon smiled grimly. ‘I had bad nights before, Illya. I’ve had a hell of a lot worse – before you busted me out of that place. Believe me, last night was – ’

Illya took hold of Napoleon’s hand and raised it, looking critically at his grazed, bruised knuckles. There was still a tremor running through him.

‘Can you hold a gun?’ Illya asked. ‘Can you shoot?’

‘Yes,’ Napoleon said impatiently.

Illya looked him straight in the eyes. He was trying to read what might be in there, what fires or demons might be lurking behind that steady gaze. It was too dark in here to make out much, but he could see something in those eyes. Something. Whatever it was that was making his hands shake still. Whatever it was that made him wake up screaming.

‘I’m cold,’ Napoleon said, clenching his hand inside Illya’s.

‘I know. We both are,’ Illya said. He was shivering too; but he wasn’t shaking, not like Napoleon.

Napoleon put a hand to the back of Illya’s head, leant closer, and kissed him lightly on the lips. For a moment that felt like all the warmth that Illya needed.

‘Illya, I am _all right_ ,’ Napoleon assured him. ‘I promise you. I’m all right. I can’t say I’m enjoying my sleep at the moment, but I’m okay.’

‘We had better get moving, then,’ Illya said.

It would be so beautiful to return the kiss with interest. It would be so beautiful to bury back down under that pile of hay and stinking cloth and unwrap Napoleon like a present and find the heat at the core of him. This was why agents weren’t supposed to have relationships with one another. This was why agents were supposed to be as close as possible, closer than twins. The lust. The muddled thinking. The walking through fire and ice to save your partner. The inability to think objectively. The doing anything to make sure you both get out alive. This was why being an agent was so complicated, why Waverly turned a blind eye, why being in love was equal parts pleasure and pain.

‘Do you have a gun for me?’ Napoleon asked.

Illya regarded his shaking hands again, and Napoleon clenched them. Illya crouched down to his pack and pulled out both of the handguns he had retrieved from assailants.

‘Get to know them,’ he said, putting them in Napoleon’s hands.

‘Illya.’ Napoleon touched a hand to his cheek. ‘I am still the New York CEA. I can handle a gun. I can even – ’

A low, ominous creaking noise. Both agents looked up simultaneously. The light was starting to grow now, a golden glow pushing in through the dirty, cracked window on the other side of the building.

‘Napoleon, the walls are not vertical any more,’ Illya began in a wondering tone, but Napoleon reacted physically, grabbing Illya, grabbing the rucksack, jerking him across the room toward the door.

Before they could make it the whole building had skewed sideways, tumbling, rotten wood falling, snow slipping and landing in cold shocks, mixed in with the sudden blows of dropping beams.

  


((O))

  


‘Illya?’

The voice he could hear was muffled. His head was on its side, pushed tightly against something. He had a mouth full of snow and blood and the dank taste of rotten wood. Blood pooling in his cheek. Cold. So much cold. A throbbing pain at the back of his head and fire in his jaw. The feeling of a body half underneath him, of unbearable weight on top of him, the frozen cold of snow.

Illya tried to reply to Napoleon’s call, but his mouth was too full of – what was his mouth full of? He tried to spit, spitting out something hard, hoping it wasn’t teeth.

‘R-roof,’ he said dazedly. Talking made pain shoot through his jaw, and for a moment he was dizzy. ‘Rooffell – ’

‘Whole building fell. Think the weight of snow was too much.’

Napoleon sounded short of breath, half-muffled. His voice vibrated up through Illya’s body.

‘Sunrise,’ Illya said. Perhaps the slight amount of heat in the rising sun had turned a little of the ice to water. Perhaps it had made something let go that had been held up before by the cold. The roof and god knew how many tons of snow must be lying on top of them.

‘You think you can move?’ Napoleon asked.

‘Don’know,’ Illya mumbled. He could hardly think, let alone move.

There was an upheaval as Napoleon stirred under him. Beams shifted and settled and Illya gave out a cry of pain. It was hard to localise. There was pain everywhere, it seemed, but it was strongest in his jaw, and there was something in the vicinity of his ribs. Something hurt a lot.

‘Sorry,’ Napoleon said.

Illya blinked and tried to focus on what was around him. There wasn’t much light. It was all a tangle of dark wood and dirty snow. He was very, very cold.

‘Was – D’I ’lack out?’ he asked. He was trying to speak without moving his jaw, because moving his jaw was unbearable.

‘Maybe,’ Napoleon told him. ‘Not for long if you did. Hold there, Illya. I think I can – ’

He moved again, and the pain spiked again, and Illya tried to hold in a cry. He tried to hold on to consciousness, but everything wavered, and instead of feeling cold he felt very hot and sick. His eyes filled with blotches. His ears sung, whistled, screamed – and he fell into the void.

  


((O))

  


The air was thick with the smell of snow and damp and broken, rotting wood. Napoleon tried hard to heave again, because Illya had gone utterly limp on top of him, and suddenly getting out had become more than urgent. He could smell blood, and he had no idea how badly Illya was hurt. He hoped to god it wasn’t something spinal, because he had no choice but to move him.

The building creaked and groaned around him. It was growing lighter in the wreckage and he could see a bit of sky. That was good. There was a sheet of corrugated iron roofing on a slant above them that had protected them from being buried in snow, and the internal beams were arranged like a game of pick up sticks, balancing on each other and creating a certain amount of space inside. But Illya was limp and warm on top of him, and he urgently needed to move.

Napoleon heaved hard against the pinning wood and Illya’s body, and managed to slide sideways into a small free space. The wreckage creaked ominously again, but then there was the slither of a good deal of snow moving and falling to the ground with a dull, soft thump, and the corrugated metal sheet above them rose a little now it wasn’t bearing so much weight.

It was so cold. His hands were going numb and he needed to work to make his body move at all. And then seemingly with no trigger at all he was engulfed in flames again, flames all around him, rising before his eyes, searing into his skin.

_No!_ He couldn’t let that take over. He gasped in air and blinked the flames away and saw the real world again. Freezing cold. Blue light from the snow. Black wood. Rusted metal. Illya.  _Illya._

He struggled to his knees in the tight space and put a shaking hand on Illya’s chest. There was a shocking amount of bright red blood on his face, but he thought that had come from his split lip. Lips bled terribly. An ugly bruise was just starting to rise on his jaw and there was a patch of sticky blood in his hair, but there weren’t any other obvious injuries.

Thank god it was cold enough that the ice and snow weren’t melting on his clothes. Napoleon couldn’t bear the thought of having to make a fire to dry him. Even having that idea cross his mind made the memory of flames threaten to engulf him again.

He had to get Illya out of here. He braced himself and started to heave broken wood aside. There was a beam over Illya’s chest and something on his legs. All the time he lolled unconscious, his face white, but periodically Napoleon checked his heartbeat, and it was still strong. He started to stir a little, and Napoleon put a hand on his face as Illya made a garbled, wordless sound, but then he sank away again, so Napoleon pulled at the beam across his chest, fighting with it to get it high enough up that he could pull Illya out from underneath.

His hands were shaking and his body ached with pain. Illya’s body had mostly protected him from the falling wood, but something had hit his hip hard, and his ankle was throbbing. He heaved another strut of wood away and got his hands under Illya’s armpits, managing to drag him out into the space he had made. It took enormous effort to get him up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift, but he did it. He clambered painfully out of the ruins then, finally getting out past that slanted and buckled sheet of corrugated iron into a world of soft, billowing drifts of snow.

He stood there for a moment with Illya limp over his shoulder, just looking at this world which was white to the horizon, barely broken by anything but what might have been low stands of trees. The world was flat and it was made of snow. Then he carefully laid Illya down on the ground and clambered back down into the wreckage of the barn to fetch the bag and the guns.

He emerged trying to catch his breath, trying to push back the aching in hip and ankle. He squatted down next to Illya’s unconscious body and rested a hand on his chest, feeling the soft thudding of his heart. And then he was overcome again with that awful feeling of falling into fire, nothing but fire every way he turned, and he squeezed his eyes closed, fighting pain and fear, shaking, unable for a while to focus on anything else.

  


((O))

  


Illya was coming back. Nausea writhed in his stomach and the pain started to swell through him again. He could see pale morning sky above him and Napoleon looking down at him.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon was saying, patting at his cheek with a gloved hand. ‘Illya, come on now.’

He gasped air deep into his lungs, wailing out a shapeless noise at the pain from Napoleon touching his face. A stabbing pain ran through his ribs again. Where was he? He moved his head sideways and saw he was lying on snow. The building was a slumped black ruin beside him, like a fallen house of cards.

‘Oh,’ he said.

‘Good morning,’ Napoleon said with a smile. His expression was light but his eyes were full of concern.

‘Not – ’est ’orning,’ Illya muttered. Speaking was so painful. He lifted a hand that felt curiously weak, touched his fingers to his lips, and saw blood on the fingertips of his gloves. He hadn’t been wearing gloves, had he?

‘Not the best morning, no,’ Napoleon agreed grimly. He was shoving Illya’s other hand into another glove. ‘Illya, if you can’t walk I’m going to have to make a fire. We’ll freeze if we don’t move.’

‘Oh,’ Illya said again. His vocabulary felt astonishingly limited. ‘C’n you – ?’ he began, because Napoleon had left all the fire building to him the last few days. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to kindle anything into flame, hadn’t even been able to look at the stove while the door was open.

‘If I have to,’ Napoleon said. ‘But I don’t want to have to. It’s clear and still. They’ll see the smoke for miles. Illya, can you get up?’

‘I – ’ He raised his hand to his jaw again, moving it tenderly. Something grated, and he felt sick. ‘Think I’ve ’roken jaw,’ he said. He turned his head sideways again and opened his lips a little. Blood and saliva ran out and bloomed crimson through the snow.

‘Fuck,’ Napoleon said. He just knelt there next to Illya on the snow for a minute. He reached out and brushed gloved fingers tenderly across his forehead, then started to rummage in the pack that he must have managed to pull from the wreckage of the hut. ‘Anywhere else?’ he asked.

‘Ri’s,’ Illya said, moving a hand to his chest.

Very carefully, as if tending to a baby, Napoleon unzipped his coat and rolled up his tops and palpated his fingers over Illya’s ribs. Despite the pain that touch was nice, and Illya met his partner’s eyes. He would have smiled if his jaw didn’t hurt so much. But then Napoleon’s fingers moved over the painful part of his chest, and he hissed.

‘Broken?’ Napoleon said, probing gently. Then he said. ‘I don’t know about broken. Maybe cracked or just bruised. I’ll give you some painkillers, then I’m going to turn you into a little Egyptian mummy, okay?’

‘No’ li’ hasn’t – done ’efore,’ Illya murmured.

He was shivering hard by the time Napoleon had bound his chest and his jaw, but he managed to stand, and he stood there on the packed snow, feeling slightly unsteady. The relief in having his jaw supported was huge, but the pain still throbbed through it.

‘The painkillers’ll kick in soon,’ Napoleon reassured him. ‘We need to start walking.’

‘Yes,’ Illya said. The bandage around his jaw helped a lot. He couldn’t talk easily, but it helped with the pain. The pain in his ribs seared every time he moved. ‘You hur’?’ he asked, trying to look critically at Napoleon. Not much of him was visible behind the thick coat and gloves and muffler, but he was moving stiffly.

‘I’m okay,’ Napoleon said. ‘Just some bumps and bruises.’ He put an arm around Illya’s back. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Which way do we go, human compass?’

‘Eas’,’ Illya said. ‘They got ’locking um’rella set uh f’miles round fort.’

‘So we need to get out from under it so we can call for extraction,’ Napoleon nodded.

Illya blinked a kind of nod in return. He had told Napoleon a few times over the last days about the blocking umbrella but he didn’t think he’d taken it in. He had been so caught up in memories of fire. He turned a little and pointed. ‘Tha’ way.’

They started walking towards the rising molten globe of the sun.

  


((O))

  


The sun was moving past the south with worrying speed. At this time of year it would sink below the horizon all too soon. The drifts of snow looked endless. In places they were broken by low, wind-stunted stands of trees, but there were no hills, and the snow went on in swells to the horizon, not a building in sight. Periodically Illya fished his communicator out of his pocket and opened it, and static screamed back at him, and wearily he pushed it away again.

‘How wide is this damn jamming field?’ Napoleon muttered, looking up at the sky. ‘And why didn’t we take it out when we were back there?’

‘You,’ Illya said softly.

‘Huh?’ Napoleon asked.

‘Y’mean, why di’n _you_ dake i’ ou’,’ he said through a jaw stiff with cold and pain. It had swollen up and was aching and burning terribly. ‘You – jus’ cap’ble of walking. Uh to me to ’ake i’ou’. ’Ut I di’n know where was. An’ we were in hurry.’

He subsided into silence. Briefly he fantasised about scooping up some of that snow and pressing it to his aching, throbbing jaw. He didn’t dare lower his body temperature that much, though. It hadn’t escaped his attention that Napoleon was limping too. Neither of them were fit for this.

‘Hey,’ Napoleon said, stopping in front of Illya, resting a hand lightly on his chest.

Illya glanced down. They had been walking away from the collapsed stable for three hours. Napoleon was still shaking. He had been shaking since Illya unstrapped him from that awful torture chair, his tormentor dead on the floor behind him. When he wasn’t talking to Illya he seemed miles away, still.

‘I’m not blaming you, Illya,’ Napoleon said.

Illya shrugged minutely. He put his hand against his jaw and made an effort to speak more clearly. ‘We migh’ die ’efore we ’et outsi’e um’rella.’ He glanced up at the sky, searching for clouds. ‘If ’lizzard comes uh we’ll die.’

Napoleon leant forward and kissed him on the forehead.

‘What would I do without my optimistic Russian?’ he asked.

Illya leant in to the kiss, but he didn’t grow more optimistic. He was in too much pain and the weather was such an immutable reality.

‘An’ you?’ he asked, touching his gloved hand to Napoleon’s. ‘You’re o’viously ’zausted. You’re s’ill suff’ring from – ’

‘From what those bastards – ’ Napoleon murmured, and broke off as if he couldn’t name what they had done. Psychological torture was such a cruel thing. He laughed suddenly. ‘You know, I haven’t been colder than this in a long, long time, but I still feel fire everywhere. When I close my eyes I feel myself burning. I can smell myself burning...’

For a little while they just stood there. Illya leant the side of his head against Napoleon’s shoulder, carefully avoiding any pressure on his jaw. Napoleon stood with his lips against Illya’s thick hood, his arms about him, while the thin wind cut around them and snow scudded over snow.

‘C’on,’ Illya said, stepping back. He turned to look the way they had come, and stiffened. ‘Na’oleon.’

Napoleon turned to follow his gaze. Far across the snow there were figures, black against the white background. Something upright like a man. A handful of small things, on all fours like dogs. Illya reached for his gun at the same time as Napoleon, but Napoleon’s hands were still shaking so badly and Illya wasn’t sure he’d be able to hit anything.

‘Careful,’ he murmured. ‘Don’ know who is yet.’

Napoleon snorted. ‘You think that’s a friendly Eskimo come to invite us to his igloo?’

‘Ojibwa, ’sid’ring our location,’ Illya murmured.

He narrowed his eyes to look at the figures, which were coming rapidly closer, then turned Napoleon around so he could rifle through the pack that his partner was carrying. He drew out his gun scope and put it to his eye.

‘Only if Ojibwa’ve taken uh Thrush as their em’lem,’ he said grimly.

Napoleon tugged at his elbow. ‘Come on,’ he said urgently.

‘Come _on_?’ Illya repeated incredulously, enunciating carefully. He put the scope to his eye again. ‘Na’oleon, the man’s on sled ’ulled ’y six dogs. Nowhere t’go.’

A rifle shot cracked through the air. Illya and Napoleon flung themselves flat on the ground behind the slight cover of a drift of snow. Pain spiked through Illya’s ribs and he fought to hold in a sob.

‘Hit?’ Napoleon asked instantly.

‘No. Ri’s,’ Illya jerked out. He felt sick. He put a hand to the bandage around his face, ready to rip it off if he vomited. He really needed not to be vomiting at this moment in time, and he swallowed hard against the lurching of his stomach.

Napoleon was on his front, holding his gun in both hands, waiting for a shot. But he was shaking. He was shaking too much for anything accurate. Illya groaned and rolled onto his front himself. It hurt so much it was like being stabbed with a knife, but unlike Napoleon, his hands were steady. He pulled off his gloves and held his gun and waited.

He could hear the runners slipping over the snow in a soft, endless hiss. He could hear the paws of the dogs, the jingle of the harness. There was no point in shooting until he was close enough…

Another rifle shot cracked over their heads. Snow was kicked up behind them where the bullet hit. The man was coming closer fast, fast – But there was a dog in front of the others, tongue hanging out, vicious teeth bared. It wasn’t grey-white like the team, but brown with black tipped ears. It wasn’t part of the team at all. It was an Alsatian, and it was coming closer and closer and he was eight years old and he was in the snow in Kyiv and the dog wanted to kill him, it wanted to rip out his guts –

A shot blasted right next to his ear, and then another, and he was jerked out of paralysed horror as the dog collapsed to the ground. He raised his own gun and aimed it at the man on the sled, bringing him down with a single shot. He turned the gun automatically on the dogs leading the team, and Napoleon’s hand closed on his like a vice.

‘They’re just sled dogs, Illya,’ he said softly, pushing his hand down.

The muzzle of Illya’s gun was in the snow. The sled dogs had pulled up when the man mushing them dropped, and they were milling about, puzzled, sniffing first the dead man and then coming on a little to investigate the Alsatian in its bloody pool on the snow.

Illya was panting, his eyes on the dogs as they started to come closer, the Thrush body slipping off the sled onto the snow. He couldn’t pull away from the mental overlay of crouching in the snow in Kyiv in that first terrible winter of occupation. He had watched that man running, watched the grey soldiers chasing after him, watched the half-starved dogs with their slavering mouths running him down, grabbing him, tumbling him, screaming, to the dirty snow. They had pulled his guts out across the road and left them steaming in the frozen air. The dogs had torn out his throat, and blood had blossomed over the snow. The Germans had stood around, watching, smoking cigarettes, talking as if they were watching an event as ordinary as children playing. Illya had hidden and watched, and he had been terrified. He had been terrified of those stalking, hungry dogs. He had seen too many people killed.

‘Illya,’ Napoleon said again. He knew all about Illya’s war. He had held him when he woke up from the nightmares. ‘Illya, they’re sled dogs. They just want to pull the sled. They’re not attack dogs.’

Was it his hands that were shaking now? He very deliberately let go of his gun and rolled over onto his back to take the pressure off his ribs.

‘Sorry,’ he said. He tried to catch his breath. ‘Sorry.’

Napoleon put a hand on his arm. He seemed steadier than before, steadier than Illya was now. Perhaps the shooting had given him just enough focus.

‘It’s okay,’ he said with a grin that lit his eyes. ‘I’ll have fun recounting that little moment in the commissary when we get back.’

‘Don’ you dare,’ Illya grated. Not many people knew how little he liked dogs. It almost never interfered with his duty. His only excuse now was that he was hungry and exhausted with pain and his mind was none too clear.

He winced and closed his eyes as one of the dogs came right up to him and licked its hot tongue across his face. The stench of its breath nauseated him. The sight of its yellow teeth when he opened one eye was worse.

‘All right, come on, come on.’

Napoleon was hauling the dog off him, and Illya painfully sat up. He gave the dogs a wide berth, skirting around them to the sled, where a pack was lashed down. He unroped it and rummaged through.

‘Real foo’,’ he said in glee. Then he pulled out a slim silver flask and unscrewed the lid a little. ‘An’ coffee!’ he said as steam billowed into the air. He twisted the lid tight again, then sat down on the sled, his legs suddenly weak, his jaw throbbing, his ribs throbbing.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said, coming to sit down beside him, thrusting the tail-wagging dogs away when they crowded too close. ‘CEA calls a break. We’re going to use this sled to get out of here, but first we’re going to eat.’

Illya touched his hand tenderly to his jaw.

‘Na’oleon, I don’ thin’ I can chew.’

  


((O))

  


It was something like being a chick. Illya lay on his back on the dog sled, the bandage around his jaw loosened, while the dogs sat with growing impatience on the snow. Napoleon took a bite of food and chewed it to a paste, mixed it with a little coffee, then lightly put his lips against Illya’s and kissed the food into his mouth. It was a strange, intimate way to eat, and a strange taste, but he could swallow without having to chew, and the food got to his stomach. That was what counted. The warmed food in his stomach was wonderful.

‘You shoul’ eat,’ he said after a while. ‘Had enough.’

The pain in his jaw was starting to make him feel sick, and he couldn’t bear the idea of being sick.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said, brushing Illya’s fringe back tenderly from his forehead, ‘but first, these.’

He popped two white pills between Illya’s lips and put the neck of the flask to his mouth. Illya swallowed them gratefully. He was grateful as well to see that Napoleon’s hands had almost completely stopped shaking. It was as if shooting that dog had brought him back on track, brought him from a torture victim back to an agent. Perhaps he would be fine now until he slept again, or unless they had to light a fire… Illya hoped they wouldn’t need to light a fire.

He lay there as Napoleon ate, gazing up at the sky. He was constantly on the lookout for clouds gathering in the north west, because they would bring another blizzard. At the moment the sky was a pale winter blue, and the only clouds were high and still. Napoleon followed his gaze and then looked north west and said, ‘It’s clear on the horizon.’

‘Goo’,’ Illya said.

He just lay there. Suddenly he felt so tired. He was so cold and there was so much pain. He turned his head sideways and wondered what pain Napoleon was in. He had said nothing about the injuries he must have suffered in the building collapse.

‘Your leg ’kay?’ he asked after a while, and Napoleon stopped eating and looked down, rubbing a hand over his right hip.

‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to run any marathons, but it’s all right.’ He grinned then and asked, ‘Was it noble self-sacrifice that made you throw yourself over me, or just clumsiness?’

Illya blinked at the sky. He was at risk of dazzling himself.

‘Was i’ clums’ness made you tri’ me uh?’

‘Oh,’ Napoleon said softly, with a knowing, sparkling look in his eyes. ‘Is that what happened? I tripped you up and you fell on top of me, huh? That explains everything.’

He held up a crumpled piece of greaseproof paper and let the wind drift it from his hand. It scudded away over the snow and blended with the white around.

‘There’s half a flask of coffee but I think we should save it,’ he said, pushing it back into the pack. ‘Illya, do you know how to mush dogs?’

Illya gave a faint snort. ‘ _These_ do’s?’

‘Dogs are dogs, aren’t they?’ Napoleon asked innocently. ‘Aren’t you the cold weather specialist? Don’t you know how to run a dog team?’

‘They s’eak Russian?’ Illya asked.

The dogs were getting increasingly restless. They wanted to run. Illya sat up, and then pressed his hand to his jaw, saying awkwardly, ‘’Andage...’

‘You do make a swell mummy,’ Napoleon grinned, kneeling down and fixing the bandage again so his jaw was properly supported. Illya could only glower. ‘When you look like that, it just makes me want to kiss you,’ Napoleon added.

‘C’n still th’ow right hook,’ Illya mumbled darkly.

Napoleon kissed his forehead, and Illya didn’t punch him.

‘ _You_ c’n mush the dogs,’ he said. ‘You s’eak Amer’can.’

Napoleon grinned at him before pulling up his muffler again, and delicately arranging Illya’s to cover the lower half of his face.

‘Canadian up here. But I can speak just about anything better than you can at the moment, my dear little Russian cherry,’ he said.

Illya was left pondering on Napoleon’s constantly varying endearments as his partner climbed aboard the sled, picked up the lines, shook them vaguely, and yelled, ‘Mush!’

  


((O))

  


The winter world whipped past in a blur. It would have been exhilarating travelling across this sea of snow if it hadn’t been for the fact that every jerk and bump hurt. Napoleon, who had never run a dog sled in his life, seemed to be in his element. The dogs were ecstatic. Even Illya, with no predisposition to like dogs, could revel in their joy as they leapt across the snow, tongues lolling, tails wagging, paws flicking up hard little knots of ice and sprays of snow. There was no sense that they were in servitude.

But the sun was gradually dipping towards the horizon and Illya kept watching for the blizzard cloud, and the cold was getting more and more intense. He pulled off his glove and pushed his hand into his pocket and found his communicator. They had travelled a good few miles. Perhaps at last they were out of the jamming field.

‘O’en Channel – ’ He worked his mouth, trying to form the letters around the pain, and then sighed. Lifting a foot, he jabbed Napoleon in the back of the knee.

Napoleon hauled the dogs to a halt in the lee of a stand of pines, and grinned down at him. His muffler was half off his face, and he was glowing.

‘I think I want to take this up as a hobby,’ he said.

Illya held up the communicator, and Napoleon took it and said smoothly, ‘Open Channel P.’

It was like a warm sunrise when a female voice replied, ‘Channel P open.’

‘Napoleon Solo reporting in,’ Napoleon said in a tone of triumph, grinning down at Illya. ‘Requesting helicopter pick up from our location. I have a wounded agent.’

‘’Ring ’issiles,’ Illya tried to say, and Napoleon regarded him quizzically for a moment, before his eyes widened, and he said into the communicator, ‘Ah, if you could send an attack ’copter complete with a couple of rockets, that would be lovely. We have a Thrush base to take out and my partner is a Russian with a vengeful streak.’

The laugh at the other end was soft but audible.

‘Leave your tracking beacon active,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll be with you in half an hour.’

‘You’re incorrig’le,’ Illya said as Napoleon closed the communicator.

His partner came down to squeeze beside him on the sled.

‘You shouldn’t try to speak,’ he said. He used a finger to snag the muffler down from Illya’s face and ever so gently kissed him on the mouth. His lips were sensitised from the pain in his jaw, and the touch sent electricity all the way down to his groin. He couldn’t suppress a soft gasp.

Napoleon grinned, kissing him on the nose this time, and then on the forehead. He fumbled with Illya’s thick winter coat, got his chilly hand underneath, and slipped it down under the waistband of his trousers into the heat there.

‘God, you _are_ incorrig’le,’ Illya gasped as the cold of Napoleon’s fingers rummaged about in the soft, hot flesh there.

‘It’s been a very bad day,’ Napoleon excused himself, keeping his hand still inside Illya’s trousers, just holding his palm cupped there, and smiling. ‘Scratch that. It’s been a very bad week. We have half an hour to fill, and we can relax now we’ve contacted base, and there’s not a soul in sight for miles. I need to keep you warm somehow.’

‘I – ah – ’ Illya gasped as Napoleon’s hand palpated on his cock. He was stiffening rapidly, and there was no room for manoeuvre. ‘I – ha’n’t washed for – ’ he began, but then Napoleon had liberated him from all the fabric and was bringing his mouth down over him, and he just didn’t care about anything else.

  


((O))

  


The dogs were regarding them quizzically. Napoleon was tucking Illya’s clothes together again and straightening up, grinning, and Illya was lying back staring at the sky, which was darkening to dusk fast. He had seemed to forget the pain in his ribs and jaw for a little while, but his face was paling again now.

‘Tha’ was – ’ he murmured, and Napoleon put a hand on his arm.

‘Speak as little as possible,’ he said with a smile, and then he scooped up a handful of snow and pushed it into his own mouth. He shuddered at the freezing cold, mushed the snow around in his mouth, and spat it out. ‘No breath mints,’ he said, ‘and I think I can hear the chopper.’

It was coming from the south, a dull throbbing in the distance that seemed to thrum into the landscape and resonate all around them. Napoleon moved away from the cover of the trees and took off his jacket and waved it above his head, making a bright blue flag for the pilot to see. A few minutes later the helicopter was touching down, snow scudding away from the downdraught, the dogs howling and moving uneasily at the noise.

‘I’ll let them free,’ Napoleon said, reaching down to ruffle one of the thickly furred heads. ‘I hope they’ll find civilisation at some point.’

He saw a dark expression cross Illya’s face, and wondered if his partner were hoping they would eventually die out here. He had tried many times over the years to get Illya to overcome his childhood horror of dogs, but he hadn’t managed it yet.

He held out a hand to help haul Illya to his feet.

‘You okay?’ he asked seriously. ‘How are your ribs?’

Illya gave a little shrug, and Napoleon rubbed his arm in sympathy.

‘You get on board,’ he said. ‘I’ll get the packs.’

He busied himself releasing the dogs, giving them each a pat on the head, and shooing them away. Then he gathered up the packs and followed Illya into the helicopter.

‘Forecast’s clear for the next few hours. What do you want exploding?’ the pilot asked succinctly as they climbed on board.

Illya pointed west, and the man nodded.

  


((O))

  


Illya pressed the release for the missiles and watched the dark, huddled Thrush base explode into flames below them. Little dark figures milled in the light of the explosions and few gunshots rang up from the ground, but nothing hit the helicopter.

He looked around to see that Napoleon’s eyes were closed, his hands gripped on the edge of his seat. He was still bothered by fire. He regained his seat by Napoleon, pressed his hand to his jaw and steeled himself, and said very steadily and clearly, ‘Revenge is a kind of wild justice.’

He could still taste blood in his mouth.

Napoleon snorted, but he kept his eyes closed until he felt the movement of the helicopter turning in the sky, and there was no more reflected orange light coming up from the ground.

‘How exactly did Bacon put it?’ he asked, fixing his eyes on Illya for a moment and then gazing back into the dark ahead. ‘ _Revenge is a kind of wild justice; which the more man’s nature runs to, the more ought law to weed it out. For as for the first wrong, it doth but offend the law; but the revenge of that wrong putteth the law out of office._ ’

Illya put a hand over his. The pilot was focussing on his work, and it was dark in the rear of the helicopter.

‘ _We’re_ th’law,’ he said. His jaw was hurting badly after that one effort at clear speech.

‘Ah,’ Napoleon said, looking back into Illya’s eyes again. ‘Well, that makes all the difference. In that case, they can burn in hell.’

Illya squeezed his hand. He tried to rest his head back against the bulkhead behind him but the vibrations were so intense that he couldn’t bear it through his jaw.

‘Here,’ Napoleon said, putting a hand on his thigh. ‘Illya.’

He slipped to sit cross legged on the floor and patted his lap.

‘Put your head here, okay?’

So Illya lay down and gratefully rested his head in the cradle of Napoleon’s thighs. It was warm and soft, and it felt like the perfect place to be.

  


((O))

  


In the thick darkness of the helicopter cabin Napoleon sat on the floor with Illya’s head lolling in his lap, his hands on Illya’s broad forehead, stroking gently across his skin. Illya seemed to relax by degrees, and it helped Napoleon relax too. The orange flare from their destruction of the fort seemed to flash in front of his eyes again and again, alternating with those terrible memories of being strapped in that chair and being made to believe his entire body was burning. When he moved his hands on Illya’s skin and in his hair it helped to ground him, helped to push away that awful flashing fear. When he stopped the flames rose.

It was cold in the helicopter, and the air was thick with the smell of rubber and fuel and grease. Minute shivers ran through Illya’s body, and whenever they grew stronger it was obvious that they exacerbated the pain in his ribs and jaw. But there was so little that could be done for that. They were en route back to the city, and there they would find warmth and medical aid. Illya had walked for miles through snow to find him, and he would bring his partner back to safety in return for that wonderful rescue.

The joy of a helicopter was that it could set down on the hospital’s helipad, and although Illya insisted on walking into the hospital he was inside within minutes of touching down.

‘Now, you’re going to let the nice doctors do what they need to with you,’ Napoleon warned him sternly as he was helped onto an examination bed. ‘X-rays, stitches, surgery – whatever it takes. Okay?’

Illya grumbled but he didn’t say anything in response. He looked deadly tired, and Napoleon felt exhausted too, but he sat with his partner as he was examined and x-rayed and told he would be operated on straight away to put a plate in his jaw.

When the doors closed behind the gurney and Napoleon was left alone, he couldn’t think what to do but sink into a chair. Suddenly the exhaustion had overcome him, and he just sat there, staring at the white wall opposite, trying not to let the visions of flames rise.

‘Mr Solo? Mr Solo, are you all right?’

He blinked into the face of a concerned looking nurse.

‘Oh, er – yes, Miss, I’m fine,’ he smiled, grateful to her for bringing him back from that terrible place.

‘Well, I hear you were both caught in that building collapse. The doctor wants to look you over, Mr Solo.’

He shook himself a little more out of the tired haze.

‘Oh, no, I’m fine,’ he assured her. ‘Just a few bruises.’ He held up his hands. ‘Honest injun. I’m not hiding anything.’

‘Hmm.’

She was looking at his hands critically. They were shaking again. He clenched them quickly and brought them back to his sides.

‘Honestly,’ he said more seriously. ‘That isn’t anything to do with the building collapse. It’s – ’ He sighed. How did he explain everything that had happened to someone outside of the business? He couldn’t possibly. ‘Illya and I are both agents,’ he said in a low voice. ‘I went through some things, but I’ll be all right. I’ll see my own doctor when I get home.’

Her lips were making a thin line.

‘I’d like to at least take your temperature and pulse. Just to make sure you’re not suffering from being out in the cold for so long,’ she said.

Napoleon glanced at the door through which Illya had been taken, and then sighed. This wasn’t likely to confine him to a hospital bed or take him away from his partner. He shrugged, and said, ‘If it will make you happy, my dear, take my temperature and pulse. I’m only concerned with being here when Illya comes out of surgery.’

‘You’ll be here then,’ she promised him, popping a thermometer into his mouth. ‘I don’t expect it will take too long. The surgeon is very good.’

_He’d better be_ , Napoleon thought internally, but he didn’t voice the thought aloud. He intended to spend the rest of Christmas Eve and Christmas with Illya even if he were in hospital. He thought about the tree in the apartment at home, which they had known they might never see over Christmas, and about the neatly wrapped presents sitting underneath. He asked around the glass rod in his mouth, ‘Er, are there any stores close enough to this place that I can run out for a few things while he’s in surgery? I want to be here when he wakes up.’

‘Oh, um – ’ She put her finger under his chin to make him close his mouth again. ‘Yes, there’s a couple of places open late just down the block. You should be able to get there and back before he comes round.’

Napoleon grunted a response rather than opening his mouth again with the thermometer in it, but he managed to give her a winning smile.

  


((O))

  


Illya hated hospital, but the hospital bed felt so soft. He hated the scents and the sounds and the being confined to bed and at the whim of doctors and nurses;  _especially_ nurses. But the bed was so soft. The drip line running into the back of his hand was delivering antibiotics, but it was also delivering painkillers, and the painkillers had the effect of making everything feel so soft as well. The entire world was a marshmallow, marshmallow outside with snow, marshmallow in here in the bed around him and in the soft, woolly feeling in his mind.

There was something by the bed he hadn’t seen before, glittering in the low light. It was a tiny fake Christmas tree hung with little baubles and stringy tinsel, sitting on the bedside cabinet. And there was something else. He turned his head sideways, blinking, to focus on the man sitting beside his bed. It took a moment to see that it was Napoleon. He tried to say something, and then remembered that they had operated on his jaw, and it was wired now so he couldn’t open his mouth.

‘Well, at least they could operate right away,’ Napoleon said with a smile. Then he held up a large syringe and said, ‘Are you looking forward to your liquid diet?’

Illya blinked at him sleepily for a few moments. He wanted to reply with something cutting but he found he couldn’t quite think, and he couldn’t quite bring himself to try to talk either. His mouth felt so weird. His entire lower face felt weird. He ran his tongue experimentally over the back of his teeth. His mouth was unbearably dry and when he tried to move his tongue towards his back teeth the pain spiked.

‘I brought you a couple of Christmas presents,’ Napoleon said. ‘Not much seems to be open so late on Christmas Eve in Canada, but I got what I could. But first,’ he said very seriously, holding out a pair of wire cutters, ‘these are from the kind hospital staff, Illya. They’re always going to be next to the bed and when you’re up and about you’ll have them hung round your neck. Your jaws are being held together with wire. If you think you’re going to vomit you cut the wires. Okay?’

Illya regarded the wire cutters, and gave a blinking nod. He hoped to god he wouldn’t be sick.

‘Good,’ Napoleon said, nodding. ‘Now _my_ gifts. This,’ he said, passing over a flat parcel wrapped in jaunty Christmas wrapping paper, ‘and this,’ passing over something that looked suspiciously like a bottle.

Illya moved his hands to the parcels and unwrapped them clumsily. In one was a simple notepad and pencil. In the other was a bottle of Stolichnaya vodka.

‘Liquid diet,’ Napoleon said with a grin, as Illya turned the bottle in his hands.

Illya tried to show some kind of gratitude in his eyes. He moved his swollen lips a little and cleared his throat, and Napoleon said, ‘A little water?’

He nodded. Napoleon put the syringe in a jug of water and drew some of it up into the cylinder.

‘You happy for me to do it?’ he asked.

Illya didn’t quite trust his own hands, but he looked meaningfully at Napoleon’s. Napoleon held out both his hands and showed them to his partner. They weren’t entirely steady, but they weren’t shaking nearly as much as they had done.

‘I’m all right, Illya,’ Napoleon assured him. ‘I promise. Yes, I know I’m going to need some time with Psych. Yes, it’s still there. I might not be able to sit in front of an open fire for a while. But I’m all right.’

Illya nodded slightly. He wished he could smile.

‘All right,’ Napoleon said, and he very gently slipped the nozzle of the syringe down between Illya’s lips and teeth until the end was touching the gap right at the back. He pushed a little water in, and Illya swallowed. The water was cool and fresh around his tongue and in his throat, and it felt beautiful.

‘Thank you,’ he said thickly, but sincerely.

It was actually a little easier to talk now that his jaw was wired shut than it had been before, when every movement had been agony. But he still wished he could smile, and even those slight movements of the muscles around his jaw were sore. His lips were swollen and his chin felt oddly numb.

Napoleon tapped his finger on the pad. ‘Why don’t you use that, huh?’

‘Too tired,’ Illya murmured. He hardly felt like he could hold a pencil.

‘Yeah, well, it’s – ’ Napoleon glanced up at the clock. ‘Hey, it’s midnight. Happy Christmas, Illya.’

Illya sighed a long sigh. ‘Didn’t get you a present,’ he said.

‘You got me out of that fort. And then you blew it up.’ Napoleon grinned. ‘ _That_ was a present, sweetheart. I promise you.’

He tried to smile, and stopped. His lips felt like rubber and there was pain behind them. His jaw was bruised and aching. But he wanted to smile. He would never tell Napoleon that he loved the endearments, but he did.

Napoleon nodded over towards the window.

‘Look at the snow.’

Illya gazed at the dark, uncurtained window. It was nothing like the blizzard that had trapped them in that ramshackle stable. The square of the window was full of fat, lazy flakes which drifted down, glittering gold in the light from the room.

‘We might be stuck here a while,’ Napoleon said with a smile. ‘Nothing’s going to fly out in this, and it wouldn’t be safe to drive. It would have been fitting to spend Christmas in a stable, but I’m quite glad we’re back in civilisation. I have a very nice hotel booked for when they let you out of here; which they might do tomorrow if you’re a good boy. How do you feel about liquidised turkey, huh?’

‘You’re a sadist,’ Illya muttered.

Napoleon snorted. ‘If you’d been on the comm to Mr Waverly you’d know what a sadist is. He wants the report on this mission in by Friday.’

Illya held up his hands weakly, and regarded them. His left was encumbered by the drip going into the back of it, but the right didn’t feel too useful, either.

‘I can type,’ he said. ‘But not now, and not tomorrow, either.’

He groaned a little. He felt so tired and so sore.

Napoleon glanced toward the door, then ducked his head close to Illya and kissed him softly on the cheek.

‘Get some sleep, dear,’ he said. ‘I promise I will sleep too, right here in this room. I have a gun to hand in case any nasty Thrushies come calling. I’ll try not to have nightmares. And I’ll be here when you wake up.’

The prospect of Christmas in a hospital bed eating liquidised food didn’t appeal at all. Illya wished that they could both be home, sitting in front of the open fire, sipping brandy and stretching out their stomachs after a Christmas feast. But he couldn’t open his mouth and Napoleon wouldn’t be able to sit in front of that fire for a long time, he thought.

He would have to make Christmas with what he had. Napoleon was here and he was here, and they were both safe. That little fake Christmas tree sparkled on the side table. They had completed their mission, and then some, in both getting out alive and managing to destroy the Thrush fort. It wouldn’t be the same as sharing a private Christmas in their apartment, with good food and drink and absolute intimacy; but how often did they get that? He had strong painkillers, a clean bed, and Napoleon at his side. That would be enough.


	2. South Pacific

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Napoleon and Illya are adrift in a life raft in the south Pacific, but at least it was a really good explosion.

‘That one looks like a dog’s head.’

Napoleon’s arm was upstretched, finger pointing lazily at the azure sky.

‘Look. An Alsatian with its tongue hanging out. Can’t you see it?’

‘Clouds are a curious kind of Rorschach test,’ Illya replied, opening one eye to squint at the sky. ‘One person can almost never make out what the other is seeing.’

‘Don’t you see a dog?’ Napoleon asked. ‘Huh?’

He took hold of Illya’s arm by the wrist and directed his hand towards a drifting fluff of cloud. Illya let him manipulate his arm without resistance, watching his hand as if it belonged to someone else. It eclipsed the sun and then moved to point vaguely at the cloud Napoleon was speaking about.

‘There. You see it? Head? Ears? Long pink tongue?’

He contemplated the fluffy mass for a while, watching as air currents miles above this spot in the south Pacific made water vapour lazily drift and morph against the blue arc of the heavens.

‘It’s a cloud,’ he shrugged. ‘As it’s nowhere near sunset or sunrise there’s no pink tongue. And no. I don’t see a dog. I see a turkey dinner.’

This had to be one of the strangest Christmas Days he had spent since he had begun sharing the celebration with Napoleon. He didn’t imagine there would be any turkey dinners in his near future that were more real than the illusory shape of the clouds.

‘Talk about a Rorschach test,’ Napoleon muttered. ‘Did you have to mention food? How can you be hungry and seasick at the same time?’

Illya grunted. The swaying of the water was so close and intimate against his back through the thin rubber bottom of the raft. He didn’t like being separated from the sea by such a thin barrier. He was lying completely flat with his head down in the bottom of the raft, and he regarded his partner through eyes squinted half closed against the sun. Napoleon was lying with his head pillowed on the inflated rubber side as if he were floating in a backyard pool rather than the world’s biggest ocean.

‘I’m not too sick if I’m lying down,’ Illya said.

Napoleon gave a small laugh.

‘Illya, seriously, were you really a Lieutenant in the Navy? You didn’t just fudge that part of your resume?’

‘I didn’t need to fudge my resume,’ Illya replied. He was contemplating the pink rose colour that came through his closed eyelids. Even like that, the sun was bright, and so hot it melted through his bones. ‘U.N.C.L.E. wasn’t after my navy expertise. And yes, I was. Not for very long, though, and I served on submarines. Miserable, claustrophobic, deadly dull, but _under_ the water.’

‘But still – ’ Napoleon protested.

‘I managed,’ Illya said rather shortly. ‘Do you think I liked being sealed into a sardine tin with fifty other men any more than I liked being in the engine room or on deck of a stinking frigate? I was never good at rank and file. But what kind of spy would I be if I couldn’t hide how I was feeling?’

‘Then why did you do it?’ Napoleon asked curiously. ‘I mean, if you hated it so much?’

Illya shrugged. Here, he felt a world away from the Soviet navy, which he remembered as a cramped, smelly, miserable existence in submarines that were either freezing or unbearably hot depending on where they were sent.

‘It facilitated my ambitions. Helped me further my education. Helped me get out of Kyiv.’

‘I thought you loved Kiev?’

Illya smiled, eyes closed. ‘I did love Kyiv. I still do. But Kyiv is not Russia in general, and it is not the Sorbonne, nor Cambridge. It’s definitely not New York, no matter how hard my countrymen in Little Ukraine try to pretend that the East Village can be moulded into it.’

Illya half opened his eyes and gazed at the sky again.

‘There. Saint Volodymyr’s Cathedral. Do you see the domes? The arches?’

‘ _Now_ I see a turkey dinner,’ Napoleon replied, and Illya grunted.

‘My theory is upheld,’ he said with a vague sense of triumph.

He remembered his grandmother standing in front of that building wringing her hands and telling Illya in a low, sad tone about the Christmas services they had held there when she was a girl.

‘How everything has changed,’ she would say, and Illya, young, innocent of the fouler side of life, replied, ‘But isn’t it better now? Everyone has work, everyone has a bed. Everyone has food.’

There was a glazed look on his grandmother’s face at these times, moisture in her eyes. Her papery, bony hand would squeeze on Illya’s, and they would walk on. One day she told Illya about her brother Andriy, who had been a poet, and had said the wrong things about the revolution. One day she told Illya about the famine that had desiccated and winnowed the country just before he was born, and how people had died like flies because the benevolent Soviet government denied them food. He hadn’t known what to think. Hadn’t Ukraine been a disparate mess for hundreds of years, being handed from country to country, from power to power? Didn’t the government make things stable again?

The cloud cathedral had dissipated into meaningless shreds but the real one still stood as a museum to religion and atheism. There was no Christmas in his country, but these things could never be entirely ground under the heel. There was New Year’s Day, and the decorated tree in the corner of the room, and there was Дід Мороз. It had been a long time since he had sat with family and shared that. It was a long time since he had really believed in Дід Мороз and his beautiful granddaughter Снігуронька. He was glad to be able to share the winter celebrations with Napoleon, because even if they weren’t quite his, they were so like his as to make very little difference.

‘How about that?’ Napoleon asked, putting his hand warmly over Illya’s. ‘Can you see Battersea power station in that one?’

Illya turned his hand so they were palm to palm. The warmth of Napoleon’s skin spread into his. Seasickness had the effect of making him slightly clammy despite the heat.

‘I think so,’ he said, for the sake of harmony, although he wasn’t even looking at the clouds. It was good to just lie here touching Napoleon’s hand. How often did they have this kind of utter peace and solitude?

‘Liar,’ Napoleon laughed.

Illya moaned very lightly as the swell increased, and Napoleon put his other hand over the first, moving his hand down until he was pressing a finger very firmly onto a soft part of Illya’s arm a few finger breadths down from his wrist.

‘Does that help?’

‘Well, maybe,’ Illya said, considering. Some of the queasiness was dying down. ‘What is that?’ 

‘Pressure point,’ Napoleon told him. ‘Might not work if it’s really bad, but there’s only a bit of swell.’

He lifted Illya’s hand and kissed his knuckles.

‘What a way to spend Christmas Day,’ he murmured, continuing to press on that point on Illya’s arm in little firm circles.

‘Infinitely preferable to going down with the _Belle Marie_ and sixteen desperate modern day pirates,’ Illya said. ‘Infinitely better than where _they_ are now.’

Since the  _Belle Marie_ had been reduced to a few spars and an oil slick, and Illya and Napoleon had watched those members of the crew not killed by the explosion being dismembered by sharks, there wasn’t much arguing with that statement. It had been a  _good_ explosion, Illya reminisced with some pride. A very effective explosion. The sun had been rising over the sea and the blast had momentarily eclipsed the dawn. A piece of decking had come down like a javelin only a foot from the life raft.

‘Well, there is that,’ Napoleon acknowledged, ‘but I wouldn’t say no to a cool pint of beer and a club sandwich.’

‘We have water and ship’s biscuits,’ Illya grunted. Ship’s biscuits were about all he felt he could keep down at the moment. ‘We’ll live. For now.’

‘You have an unerring knack of making a bearable situation seem so much worse, my little Soviet pessimist,’ Napoleon grumbled. ‘Hey, how about that one on the horizon? Looks like the Matterhorn.’

‘All clouds look like mountains when they’re on the horizon.’

‘This one definitely looks like the Matterhorn.’

Illya heaved himself up awkwardly. The rubber of the boat gave beneath him when he pushed his elbow on it, and his head started to swim, but he focussed on the cloud on the horizon that Napoleon was looking at with interest.

‘You okay?’ Napoleon asked, supporting him. ‘If you’re sick, just remember to do it over the side this time and not in the bottom, my little water baby. Will you do that?’

Illya wrinkled his nose at Napoleon. For the last few hours he had been forced to put up with his left trouser leg resting in the remains of the vomit. But he was more interested in the cloud. It was hazy, but surprisingly solid looking.

‘I think that might be land,’ he said.

Napoleon sat up abruptly, making the raft rock horribly, and stopping the firm pressure of his finger on Illya’s arm. Illya leant on the side just in case. The clear blue water lapped a foot below his head, and he willed himself not to be sick into it.

‘Really?’ Napoleon asked, shading his eyes with his hand. ‘You think? What direction is that? North?’

‘North north west, I think. I’m sure there was something on the charts in that direction.’

‘Something?’ Napoleon asked eagerly. ‘Something like an island? An atoll? An island nation?’

‘A relatively large island,’ Illya said, closing his eyes and trying to bring the chart back to mind. ‘I don’t remember what it was called. I think there might have been some kind of military base on it.’

‘Rescue?’ Napoleon asked hopefully. ‘Radio? _Food_?’

Illya smiled. ‘Maybe all three.’

‘Hula girls,’ Napoleon continued, his voice taking on a dreamlike quality, ‘dropping leis around our necks. Martinis and sun loungers. Christmas dinner and ninety degrees...’

‘Well, there will perhaps be a platoon of hardened military men and a bed to sleep in, at any rate,’ Illya murmured, eyeing his partner for his reaction.

‘I don’t need a platoon of military men. I have you,’ Napoleon said, fiddling with the collar of his stretched and tired looking black t-shirt. They were both dressed as deckhands, as they had been pretending to be on the boat. ‘Well, I revise my wishlist, Illya. A bath, a radio, dinner, and a bed we can both squeeze into.’

‘That’s supposing we make it to land,’ Illya commented. ‘We’re drifting that way, but at some point we’ll have to get out the oars. The surf can be lethal in these places, too. And I think there might be a storm building in the south. There’s a high possibility that we will drift away from the island and die of thirst, or be overturned by high seas, and drown, or overturned by the surf, and drown, or drown trying to get ashore.’

Napoleon sighed. ‘Illya, you are the most perfect tour guide. Did you know that? Are there any other ways for us to die out here?’

Illya shrugged minutely. ‘Heat stroke. Starvation. Shark attack. Of course it’s possible the crew of the  _Belle Marie_ had comrades somewhere in the vicinity who may be looking for us, although I don’t know exactly why they’d bother, since the chances of our dying in the raft are extremely high.’

Napoleon busied himself getting out the oars and orienting himself in the boat with his back to island so that he could row.

‘You’re going to have to sit up for a while,’ he warned Illya. ‘You going to have to take turns at the oars, too.’

‘I expected nothing less,’ Illya said stoutly, although he felt anything less than stout. He was sure that cloud in the south heralded a storm, and the sea was already growing rougher.

Napoleon regarded him for a moment, then said with unusual gentleness, ‘You know, you’re going terribly pale. Look, why don’t you just settle down as best you can? I’ll row for as long as I can.’

  


((O))

  


The little rubber raft was pitching like a bucking horse, and Illya had given up all pretence at not being seasick. His stomach was entirely empty and he could hardly see for the dizziness. But he had hold of an oar and was pushing it into the water at Napoleon’s shouted directions. The world was a blur of sloping water and bright yellow rubber. There was salt water in his mouth, salt water in his hair and eyes. His clothes were soaked. Their store of water and food had been washed overboard an hour ago, so if they didn’t manage to make land their prospects seemed grim. It didn’t take Russian pragmatism to see that.

‘All right, Illya, _pull_ ,’ Napoleon yelled, and Illya pulled. His arm and chest muscles screamed, but he pulled with the oar with all his might.

‘Pull!’ Napoleon shouted again, and blindly he pulled.

They were so close to the island that on a calm day it would have been a pleasant swim to shore, but they were at the mercy of the currents and the wind. The waves were pounding onto the beach in great foaming rolls. The sea lurched up under the base of the raft, then dropped from under it. They smacked back down with a jolt, and another wave poured more water over the side. Illya coughed the vile seawater from his mouth, and kept pulling with the oar, trying to head the nose of the raft towards the shore. Another wave rose like a mountain, the water an amazing translucence of green and blue and seething foam. And then they were tumbling, tumbling, and Illya was entirely in the water, no rubber beneath him any more, no sky, no air –

He clutched out, and for a moment fingertips were scrabbling at his – and then they were gone. He forced his eyes open and tried to see, but he could see nothing but swirling water. He wrenched off his shoes and let them sink away. He tried to swim, but he was being turned and tossed by the power of the sea, and there was almost nothing he could do. He couldn’t tell which way was up. He let the current take him and gravity lift him, and suddenly he was hitting hard into rough sand and shingle, being sucked back again, driven on again. He clawed at the stones as the water tried to reclaim him, feeling it sucking, pulling, bubbling along arms, flanks, legs...

He was coughing water out of his lungs. There was sand in his mouth. He could see his hand not far from his eyes, bright red with blood. He lay there gasping, feeling the ground rocking and swaying underneath him, feeling the amazing reality that he was  _alive_ . He had been thrown into the sea and almost swallowed by it, but he was alive!

_Oh…_ Napoleon. Where was Napoleon?

He pushed himself to his knees, dimly aware that his right hand hurt a lot, still hacking water from his lungs. He looked to the right, and then to the left – and saw a dark form lying on the beach just a few yards away, moving feebly.

‘Napoleon!’ he called out, crawling across the clinging sand, getting a hand onto Napoleon’s chest, feeling the thud of his heart through drenched clothes. ‘Napoleon!’

Napoleon blinked, opened his eyes, and smiled serenely.

‘Illya,’ he said.

Illya huffed and sat on his haunches, trying to catch his breath.

‘I thought I was going to have to give you the kiss of life,’ he said.

The serene smile didn’t leave Napoleon’s face.

‘You can still give it to me,’ he said. ‘I don’t feel all that alive.’

Illya sat looking down at himself, trying to assess the damage wreaked by the waves. His elbows and knees were grazed. His clothes were torn. He felt as if he were bruised all over. Bizarrely Napoleon’s clothes, apart from being wet, looked perfect. He even still had his shoes.

‘Are you hurt?’ he asked Napoleon.

‘Only about as much as your average log that’s just come through the mill.’

Napoleon coughed, spat out a little water, and sat up. He took hold of Illya’s hand.

‘You’re bleeding.’

‘Yeah, well, I seem to have sprung leaks in a few places,’ he said ruefully, twisting his arm to look at his elbow.

‘Yes, but usually one’s index finger isn’t meant to be at that angle,’ Napoleon said pointedly, examining Illya’s hand.

‘Unless it’s broken,’ Illya pointed out pragmatically.

‘Ah, well,’ Napoleon murmured, holding Illya’s hand, turning it idly as he examined it.

Suddenly he gripped the whole finger firmly and pulled it hard. Illya swore, a flood of white-red flashing through his mind. He blinked, and Napoleon was lowering him to the sand with an arm around his back, still holding his throbbing hand, and looking at him in concern.

‘Hey, come on,’ Napoleon was saying, patting his arm. ‘Illya, are you with me? You okay?’

‘Yes,’ he said dazedly, staring at his hand. He was dizzy and nauseous, and he wanted to swear some more.

‘Sorry,’ Napoleon said. ‘I think it’s broken, but it was dislocated too. Needed putting back in. It’s better if you’re not expecting it.’

‘So _you_ say,’ Illya murmured, but privately he had to admit that he was grateful not to have to anticipate that pain.

Napoleon was taking a soaked handkerchief out of his pocket and tearing off a narrow strip.

‘How _did_ you manage to come through that without even a rip in your clothes?’ Illya asked critically, sitting up slowly and looking sideways at him.

‘Natural grace, I suppose,’ Napoleon replied without pause. He took Illya’s hand again and started wrapping the strip of cotton around his fingers, lashing one finger to the other before tying the ends tightly. ‘Mr Waverly will be delighted.’

‘Humph,’ Illya snorted. ‘I don’t think he minds so much if we ruin fisherman’s clothes. It’s the ninety dollar suits he baulks at. And that _would_ have been ruined, if you’d been wearing one. I don’t think salt water is any good for merino wool.’

‘Well, you’re probably right.’ Napoleon lifted Illya’s bandaged hand and kissed his knuckles. ‘Better, _mon beau cher_? Come on. Let’s see if there’s any civilisation on this island.’

‘Otherwise we will be in worse straits than if we were still at sea,’ Illya muttered darkly.

‘As long as there’s water and plants to eat we’ll be much better off than when we were at sea,’ Napoleon countered. ‘No more salt water for you, Lieutenant Kuryakin. Come on. Can you stand up?’

‘Of course I can stand up,’ Illya muttered irritably, but he swayed when he did.

Napoleon caught hold of him, put a finger under his chin to lift it, and kissed him softly, his other hand raking through Illya’s salt-wet hair. Illya closed his eyes and just felt the warmth of Napoleon’s mouth. He didn’t so much mind the taste of salt right now. It was wonderful to stand there with his arms around Napoleon’s solid body after being so close to losing their lives in the surf. He stood there for a while, just holding him and being glad for the strong heartbeat in his chest.

‘Okay?’ Napoleon asked as they parted. ‘You’re not hurt anywhere else?’

‘No more than you,’ Illya promised. ‘I just need to get my land legs back again.’

They had been at sea for two weeks before they had taken the decision to blow up the  _Belle Marie_ . He was quite pleased to see that Napoleon was having a little trouble walking normally too, as they made their way up the sand towards the line of trees.

  


((O))

  


‘It’s not supposed to be like this,’ Napoleon lamented as they pushed their way through thick undergrowth, as rain slammed down from a slate sky and lightning flashed in sudden, vivid shocks. ‘It’s Christmas Day. A man isn’t supposed to spend Christmas Day soaking wet in an impenetrable jungle, trying to avoid snakes and spiders and God knows what else – ’

‘Be grateful it isn’t cold,’ Illya commented. The jungle was vile, and he hated it, but there was no point in saying so. ‘Be glad we came ashore before the storm hit. Can you hear those breakers now? We’d be dead.’

‘I’m not sure how broad the line is between dead and this,’ Napoleon replied tartly, kicking hard at a thick tangle of plants between two trees. ‘It’s a kind of slow drowning.’

‘At least you have shoes,’ Illya pointed out. All he had was Napoleon’s inner soles held on to his feet with his socks over the outside. It was better than nothing, but left a lot to be desired.

‘Yes, I have shoes,’ Napoleon conceded. ‘But if you hadn’t gotten rid of your shoes in the surf – ’

‘If I hadn’t got rid of my shoes in the surf I wouldn’t have been able to swim. I preferred making an effort to not drown over making like a piece of driftwood.’

They were pushing on towards a little ridge in front of the peaked mountain that Napoleon had first thought was a cloud. Neither man knew exactly what they were aiming for, but if there was civilisation on this island it was somewhere other than where they had made land, and they might find fresh water, too. Illya followed in Napoleon’s wake, trying to ignore his throbbing hand, watching very carefully where he was putting his feet because the thick storm clouds made it dark, especially under the trees. When Napoleon stopped short Illya bumped into him and almost tripped.

‘Look,’ Napoleon said in a tone of reverence. ‘Illya!’

Illya came to Napoleon’s side and looked where he was pointing. They had reached the top of the ridge, and the ground sloped gently down towards a broad, flat valley. The place had been entirely cleared of vegetation, and replaced with grass and tarmac surrounded by a high wire fence. There were low buildings and vehicles. Outside one of the low, long buildings was what was undeniably a Christmas tree, ten feet tall and sparkling with lights.

  


((O))

  


‘So you chaps are – ’

‘U.N.C.L.E. agents,’ Illya said for the fifth time. He spelled it out rather wearily. ‘U – N – C – L – E. That’s the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. We have international jurisdiction in all signature countries – and that includes the United Kingdom. They were one of the founding members. Listen, I don’t suppose I could have a couple of aspirin?’

‘So he’s American and you’re – Russian?’ the officer asked suspiciously, fiddling with the badge on his cap, which was in front of him on the desk. He looked as if he had been looking forward to a quiet afternoon of Christmas celebrations, rather than interrogating two drowned rats who happened to have come ashore on an island hundreds of miles from any other land.

Napoleon and Illya were both sitting on chairs in a small office, clothes dripping on the floor, towels around their shoulders. The officer interviewing them seemed to think they were spies. That was a fair assumption, Illya conceded, since they were.

‘Yes, I’m American,’ Napoleon confirmed. ‘Illya is a Soviet citizen. But we’re both on the same side. Listen, if you could just radio New York – ’

‘We have a man seeing to that,’ the officer said, tapping his finger on a pad of paper on his desk.

There was a dripping noise, and Illya looked down at the small puddle forming on the linoleum floor around their chairs. It was quite warm in here, but it was still miserable being soaking wet, especially when the soaking wet had blended seamlessly from being wet with sea water to wet with rain water.

‘I really would be grateful for some aspirin,’ Illya said, holding up his hand. The makeshift bandage around his fingers was tattered and wet and red with blood, and the finger was swelling badly.

The phone on the desk rang, and the officer answered it. Illya and Napoleon exchanged glances, listening carefully to this half of the exchange with some apprehension, but when the man put the phone down, he smiled.

‘Well,’ he nodded. ‘Napoleon Solo and Illya Nikolayevich Kuryakin. I suppose you wouldn’t make up ridiculous names like that, would you? You’ll be pleased to hear that your Mr Waverly confirms your identity. In fact, our communications clerk happens to know your Mr Waverly. Friend of his father. Waverly used to dandle him on his knee and read him stories, apparently. Now, Mr Kuryakin, you might like to see our C.M.O. about that finger, yes? And I expect you’re hungry?’

‘We are _extremely_ hungry,’ Illya said with feeling. Ship’s biscuits might take the edge off, but they weren’t anything like food.

  


((O))

  


Roast goose, roast potatoes, parsnips, carrots, sage and onion stuffing, gravy. Christmas pudding. Christmas cake. Mince pies and sherry. It couldn’t be said that it was a bad Christmas dinner in any way. Illya felt tight as a drum, hardly able to walk with the bounty he had eaten at the officers’ table. There had even been Christmas crackers to pull, and Napoleon had looked wonderfully comical in a pale blue paper crown, wearing a cheap novelty ring on his finger. Illya had worn his pink crown but spurned the flimsy pink hair slide that Napoleon had tried to make him wear. His finger was splinted, the painkillers he had been given were considerably stronger than aspirin, and the sherry was doing a wonderful job at taking the edge off.

The storm had passed, and the palm trees looked a little worse for wear, but the rebirth of the sun from behind the clouds had the world steaming, birds singing, animals calling. Napoleon and Illya reclined on sun loungers, wearing borrowed clothes, watching as the great shimmering disc of the sun moved closer to the jagged mountain peak, just letting the heat penetrate to their bones. The surreal sound of songs about snow and freezing weather emanated through the door from the mess room behind them.

‘Where on earth did they get the goose?’ Napoleon wondered.

Illya shrugged as a female voice warbled from the record player about Frosty the Snowman.

‘Geese are ten a penny. Where did they get the mincemeat? I haven’t eaten a proper mince pie since I was at Cambridge. I don’t understand why your country hasn’t taken to them. You usually glorify fatty, sugary food.’

‘Less lip, squirt,’ Napoleon muttered, poking Illya in the side, but he smiled at him all the same.

It was so good to be on solid ground. It was so good to be under the warm sun in dry clothes, knowing that another mission had been completed successfully and here, surrounded by over three hundred members of the British armed forces, they were completely safe. It was so unusual to be able to completely relax, especially away from home, and on Christmas Day.

‘Do you remember when we spent Christmas in that Thrush cell, and they didn’t bother to give us any food or heat?’ Illya asked, eyes closed, letting the south Pacific warmth coddle him.

‘I remember you breaking the guard’s neck and us sneaking down the wall with a rope we braided from torn blankets,’ Napoleon replied. ‘And then sleeping together in a barn a few miles away from the Thrush stronghold. Oh, that barn…’

Illya grinned, remembering that barn, the thick, deep hay, and snuggling close to Napoleon for warmth.

‘Remember when you took me down to Veselka in a snow storm and filled me so full of borscht and pierogis I could barely get off my chair?’ Napoleon continued.

Illya laughed. He did remember that, so well.

‘I remember having to steer you home because you’d drunk so much, and when we got in you lay down under the Christmas tree singing carols into the branches, and I had to drag you into bed. So this year we top it all by blowing up a boat at dawn, almost drowning, finding the only island for hundreds of miles...’

‘And with our usual verve, by sunset we’re sitting on sun loungers sipping iced drinks and looking forward to three days in the tropics before anyone can fly us home,’ Napoleon said with a grin, looking sideways at Illya.

Illya stretched on the sun lounger, feeling the bruises all over his body from being tossed in the surf, feeling the dull throbbing of his finger and the tight fullness of his stomach. He relished the fact that his skin no longer tasted of salt. He couldn’t even see the sea from here. And they would leave by air, not by boat. He didn’t want to be on a boat again for a long time.

‘Don’t wake me up. It feels too good to be true,’ he said.


End file.
